In any further communication
on this subject, please quote
No.
and address
F 4388/248/10.
not to any person by name,
but to-
"The Under-Secretary of State,"
Foreign Office,
18
London, S.W.1.
Sir,
RE
13 JUL LC. o. I
FOREIGN OFFICE,
S. W. 1.
17th July, 1933.
33
47
I am directed by Secretary Sir John Simón to refer
(19)
(27)
to your letters 13717/1/33 of the 23rd and 30th June on the
subject of the revised draft of a Hong Kong Ordinance
entitled "The Foreshore and Sea Bed Works Ordinance".
2. Sir John Simon is apprehensive of the repercussions
which the passage of legislation in this form in Hong Kong
may have on British interests in China. Your letter to the
China Association of the 23rd June, copy of which was
enclosed in your letter under reference of the same date,
pointed out that "in China land required for urban
'improvements may be taken arbitrarily and without provision
for any adequate compensation". That is the cause of the
misgivings which are felt in regard to this matter. Chinese citizens have in practice no redress against arbitrary
acts of the Executive, amounting often to confiscation, and
the danger, which, in Sir John Simon's opinion, it would be
desirable to guard against, is that the Chinese Government,
in pursuance of their policy of the recovery of sovereign
rights and abolition of foreign privileges, may attempt to
subject British property owners to similar treatment,
especially in the case of property adjoining the sea or a
Such property has generally been acquired by British
concerns for the express purpose of enjoying and developing
the trading facilities afforded by access to the water.
river.
3. Hitherto British owners of riparian land have
enjoyed what has seemed to amount to a prescriptive right to
"Shengko" adjoining accreted land, namely to become the
The Under Secretary of State,
Colonial Office.
legal